You Could Be Happy
by xfirefly9x
Summary: Sam/Jack. Love is as strong as death. Why be capable of feelings if we're not to have them? Why long for things if they're not meant to be ours? from Tristan and Isolde. Sam ponders what her dad said in Grace and has a talk with Jack...


**You Could Be Happy**

Prompt: #000 _"Love is as strong as death. Why be capable of feelings if we're not to have them? Why long for things if they're not meant to be ours?"_ (from Tristan and Isolde). // #001 Happy

Notes: Written for gwenhwyfar1984 for the sjficathon and fic101 on livejournal. Thanks tocalleigh j for the beta!

_"Love is as strong as death. Why be capable of feelings if we're not to have th__em? Why long for things if they're not meant to be ours?"_ (from Tristan and Isolde).

It had been too long since Sam had been truly happy. As her father had told her – even if he had been a figment of her imagination, at the time – she was just satisfied. She had a great job and the best friends anyone could ever hope for, her relationship with her father was going really well and she was generally content with her life and who she was, but despite all of that, she was missing something.

That something was love. Her dad had put it out there bluntly and in its simplest form. She, Samantha Carter, was alone.

Her dad had never been so right.

Days after she had returned home from both the cloud formation that had trapped the Prometheus and from the infirmary once Janet had released her, those same words that her father had uttered on the ship floated through her mind…

"_Are you happy, Sam?" her dad asked. _

_She paused for a moment, surprised by the question. It took her a moment to find her voice. "What?"_

"_Just answer the question."_

_She eyed him curiously as she answered. "Well at the moment things are a little rough, but in general, sure I'm happy." She felt a twinge of annoyance at the look of doubt in his eyes. He didn't believe her._

"_No, you're not," he stated firmly. "You're content, you're satisfied, you're in control and that's the problem."_

She had spent the past hour staring into the mirror, trying to make sense of it all. Clearly, her dad wanted her to be happy. That wasn't unusual. All good parents wanted no less than that. But what exactly had he _meant_?

He often laced his words with hidden meanings. Was there something she hadn't read into that he was trying to tell her? What was she missing?

"_Okay, I'm really not following here," she told him, with a half-smile._

_He didn't look surprised at all and instead, it was as if he had expected no other reaction from her. "I'm saying you're missing something vital from your life. And the sad part is you have no idea what I'm talking about."_

It was true that she hadn't known what he was talking about immediately. It had sunk in by the time he had finished, but before that, she'd been in the dark. She just hadn't had the time to look into something more than she already had and nothing solid had ever come up to sway her from that.

"_Dad, I am happy. I've seen and done things most people couldn't even dream of. I have an incredible life."_

_His next words hit her hard._

"_And yet you're alone."_

Could it be that her dad wanted her to find someone? Did he want her to find that something in her life that she had been lacking? Her mind buzzed with the possibilities.

"_Well, lately the dating scene's been a little stale but then again I am marooned on a space ship." She tried to joke her way out of it, but her best efforts only earned her a disapproving look. _

_Her dad continued, choosing to ignore her sarcasm-tinged comment. "No, always," he said simply. "For as long as she was alive, your mother showed me a world beyond just ambition and career. She gave my life meaning and balance and it was my honour to love her for the short time she was with me."_

_Sam's expression flickered through a variety of emotions as his words washed over her._

"_And if I were young again and I met her for the first time even knowing her fate," he went on, "I would do it all again. That is love." He said it matter-of-factly, like there was no other truth. Maybe there wasn't._

"_Sam, I know you've denied yourself the experience because you think it must inevitably end in pain and loneliness. It's time to let go of the things that prevent you from finding happiness."_

Sam leaned back against the bathroom wall and sunk down to the floor. She did have to let go. It was the only thing that made sense.

"_You deserve to love someone and be loved in return."_

As the last of the words slipped through her mind, she found her thoughts focusing on Jack…Colonel O'Neill. It was nothing more than a reflex – or so she kept telling herself. Looking to her superior was the natural thing to do in such a situation…when there was no one else to turn to.

And she truly had no one else. No one like him.

She had Daniel and Teal'c – and of course her father, General Hammond and Janet. She had friends. She didn't have that special someone that her father had told her about. She didn't have what he'd had with her mother.

She just had friends.

Jack…he was just a friend, too. There could never be anything between them while they both remained in the military, after all. And although they had both admitted about 3 years earlier that they cared for each other a lot more than they were supposed to, things changed. People changed.

How was she to know if he still felt the same? How was she to tell him that she did still feel the same?

It just wouldn't work. The feelings were there – they were definitely there, in her case – but so were the regulations. Nothing could happen.

Head propped up on her knees and her hands hugging her legs to her chest, she felt a sudden urge to cry. Would she always be alone? So far, everyone that she had grown close to had died: Jonas Hanson, Narim, Joe and even Daniel, although he had come back to life later and was alive and well now. Her relationships with each of them varied, but in the end it was all the same.

People who she let into her heart died.

She was so caught up in that thought that she almost didn't hear the knocking at her door. As it was, she had only just managed to pull herself together and splash some water on her face when it came again, this time more forcefully and with a shouted "Carter, you in there?" alongside it.

Jack.

She swallowed down the lump in her throat and went to answer the door, a jolt of surprise running through her when she saw that it was only him there and not Daniel or Teal'c as well. It was an unspoken rule between them that they not interact out of work without at least one of the others. Anything could happen, if they didn't. Things that shouldn't happen.

Their eyes locked then, and all thoughts of rules fled Sam's mind. She needed this. She could tell that Jack needed it, too. Nothing else mattered.

Waving him inside, she closed the door behind him and followed him into the lounge room. She sat next to him where he slumped onto the couch and, still without saying a word, reached for his hand. Jack gave her a smile small when he realised what she was doing and closed the distance between their hands, squeezing gently.

That simple touch sent shivers down Sam's spine and her eyes fluttered closed. "Jack," she said finally.

He murmured something in her ear.

"Jack. What is…this?" With her free hand, she gestured between the two of them and at their still joined hands. "This…thing…between us," she added. "I need to know."

"This is…us," Jack put simply. "You, Sam. Me, Jack. Hanging out at your place…" He drifted off.

Annoyed, Sam sighed. "Yes, I know that, but that's not what I asked." She paused. "Look. When I was onboard the Prometheus, I had these 'visions' or 'hallucinations' – whatever you want to call them. My dad told me some things and it got me thinking."

Jack smirked at the last bit and opened his mouth to undoubtedly say something about her thinking habits when she glared at him and he decided against it. Instead, he settled with a safer route. "What did your dad say?"

"He told me that I'm not happy and that I'm just settling with what I've got," she explained. "He said I'm alone." She let her gaze fall from his and gave him a moment to process.

"Oh." It wasn't much, but it was something at least. Jack's expression remained suitably blank.

"Oh?" Sam repeated.

Jack just nodded. "Yes. Oh," he confirmed. "I'm not good with…these sort of things," he added on in explanation, copying her hand gesture from before.

Sam smiled slightly at that and patted his arm gently. "I guess I should get to the point then, huh?"

"You do that," Jack grinned back.

So she did.

"The way I see it is love is as strong as death. Why be capable of feelings if we're not to have them?" She paused as a glimmer of emotion flashed over Jack's face. "Why long for things if they're not meant to be ours?" she finished.

She looked him in the eyes and waited for him to answer, expecting some kind of muttered response at best. She should have known better.

Jack leaned in closer and touched his lips to hers; tracing patterns on her mouth as his hands roamed her sides. Sam didn't protest for a second and instead did everything in her power to make the moment last.

When they broke apart, they wore identical grins. Jack moved his hand over to rest on Sam's shoulder almost automatically, and he finally answered her question. "I've always found words overrated," he began awkwardly. "So, I hope that cleared things up?"

Sam felt a part of her warm up inside and she remembered something else her dad had once said.

"_You could be happy."_

She grinned. Those words had never felt so true. "Oh yeah!"


End file.
